British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
